Map Tool

patk

patk

I was thinking about making a campaign using maptool which can be found at rptools.net and hamachi so people can diretly connect to me. Does anyone know a better program that i wouldnt have to download two seperate things in order to use a server?

spidieman

Map tool looks like one of the best programs i have seen in a while. Fantasy grounds is another good one.

i don't know why you need hamachi though? it should work if you just give them your public ip (google 'what is my ip' )

redstar

I would use port forwarding. Its simple to setup and simple to use. You should google your specific router on how to do this but the basic steps are as follows:

# Login into you router. If you dont have the login/password you can reset it with a button on the back. Username/password typically defaults to admin/admin.
# Set port forwarding. This is typically found under a menu on your router's control panel. I would set the port to something besides the default on Maptools of 51234. Set it to 7070 or something.
# Start up Maptools, start a server. Be sure to use the same port you setup above. Click on "Connection Information." This will give you your external IP address and the port. Your players should use that information to connect.

And maptools _is_ the best, if for no other reason that it runs on JAVA, and therefore can run natively on a Mac :)

Chief_Librarian

I recently started a campaign (http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/shards-of-crystal) with people that I've been playing FFXI with for the last 5 years. The trouble was that only three of us (my wife, a buddy from college, and me) live near each other. The other members of the group live in the South and Midwest.

MapTool (and TeamSpeak) were the answer to the problem. Also since MapTool runs on JAVA its MAC friendly (2 of the group use MACs) which was a key point for me. The tool itself is very easy to use and is so good that I'm very tempted to use it in my local games as it makes handling maps/npcs/combat a lot easier than fishing out miniatures and drawing the map out on the battlegrid.